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Intro: [00:00:05] Coming to you live from the Business RadioX studio in Woodstock, Georgia. This is fearless formula with Sharon Cline.

Sharon Cline: [00:00:16] And hello to a surprise Tuesday Fearless Formula program where we talk about the ups and downs of the business world and offer words of wisdom for business success. And today in the studio we have the CEO of SocialCast Marketing, which is what I want to lead with, but also a three time radio personality of the year, three time morning show of the year. Also an avid fisherman, also a hunter, also on the board of the Alzheimer’s Association. Is that what it’s called? Association? We’ve got it all covered right here. Quite the resume. Please welcome Spencer Graves.

Spencer Graves: [00:00:51] That is by far the nicest and sweetest intro, and I’ve never heard anybody actually call me the CEO of social caste. You’re right. It’s true. But it’s so new that you’re the first person who’s ever said you’re Spencer Graves, the CEO of SocialCast Marketing.

Sharon Cline: [00:01:08] Really?

Spencer Graves: [00:01:09] Yeah. It was very nice.

Sharon Cline: [00:01:10] It was.

Spencer Graves: [00:01:11] Lucky. Nice. Nice to hear.

Sharon Cline: [00:01:12] Well, it’s true. And what I think is kind of cool, you’ve got this really great resume, but you also have a lot of heart. That’s part of what you do, which is why I wanted to talk to you. Because fearless formula is not just business and I don’t know a whole lot about business and money and plans and things, but I do know what it feels like to be a human on the planet trying to make your life happy and and make it what you want and have your own little business and have a dream.

Spencer Graves: [00:01:37] Well, you’re so right, because a lot of the times people find that they’re successful in business, but they’re stagnant in their personal life. So then they’re trying to figure out, well, what do I do next? Like where do I go and and how do I take the success that I’ve built and how do I factor that into what I’m really passionate about? And for me, spending 22 years in the broadcast industry, mainly in radio, bouncing around and working with NASCAR and corporate sponsorship, moving all across the United States and great cities like San Diego, California. Dallas, Texas. Philadelphia, the state of Delaware, St Louis. I saw Saint Louis right before I moved to Atlanta. Like all of these great places with so much different culture and heritage and feels of the city that when I when I landed in Atlanta and I worked in radio, I started to get my passion was reinforced where I was like, You love to hunt, you love to fish, you like the outdoors. What can you do based on your career up until this point, and how can you make it beneficial for that next step in your life? And that’s hopefully what I’ve been able to do. But I’ve enjoyed the switch.

Sharon Cline: [00:02:48] So I do want to go back a little bit into how you got started in radio, because you have such a obviously, you know, but and I’ve spoken to you in person, but something about hearing your voice through the the headphones, I’m like, Dang, your voice is so nice.

Spencer Graves: [00:03:00] Oh, well, thank you. Yes.

Sharon Cline: [00:03:02] That’s nice. It’s so nice to hear.

Spencer Graves: [00:03:04] I got Can we cuss on this, by the way?

Sharon Cline: [00:03:07] So I don’t think I have.

Spencer Graves: [00:03:09] Like, I’m not far I’m not just going to run around screaming cuss words, but there are some stories that I have where like a cuss word actually makes.

Sharon Cline: [00:03:16] You do it. You do. You and I will if you want to add it. Okay. I have not edited so far, but if I have to edit, I sure will. I’ll put something like fine.

Spencer Graves: [00:03:24] It’s also on the internet so you can pretty much do whatever you want. I know that through the FCC.

Sharon Cline: [00:03:28] Yes, that’s.

Spencer Graves: [00:03:29] Right. Which we’ll get into, I’m sure at some point. You know, the way that I got into radio, I was 17. I was a senior in high school, and this was in the early 2000s, probably 2000. And my guidance counselor in high school came to me and said, Hey, next year you’re going to be a senior. We’re offering this new class. It’s called an internship program. And I was like, What the heck is that? And they were like an internship program from what we’ve read, because this was all done by the state of Virginia. You pick an industry, as long as they say you can work there, you’ll get school credit, but you’re getting on the job training. And I was like, Well, that’s pretty sweet. So then she goes, So what do you want to do? Like, immediately she just introduced this to me, and now she’s like, What do you want to do? And I’m 17. I’m like, I don’t know. But I was calling the basketball games because I hurt myself playing football in high school. So during basketball season I couldn’t play. So they were like, Why don’t you call the games? So I sat at the table courtside, had a microphone so everybody in the arena could hear me, and I was basically commentating on what my friends were doing on the team that I used to play on.

Sharon Cline: [00:04:40] So much power there.

Spencer Graves: [00:04:41] So I was like, I’m going to make fun of every single one of you. Like, I think it’s great that you’re doing well in the game, but I’m going to keep you humble and knock you down a peg. So it was kind of like a roast session and it was nice. Like while I was doing that, people started to realize, Oh, maybe you have a gift for this kind of thing. And I didn’t. Really see it that way. I just thought that I was making fun of my friends, so I was like, Well, maybe I’ll go into broadcasting. So I contacted a local TV station. Wdbj seven out of Roanoke, Virginia, and they were like, you in college? I said, No. And they go, Well, good luck. Call a radio station. We only take interns that are in high school or in college. And I was like, okay. So first door slammed on my face. I call a local radio station and the guy answers the phone. He’s like, Yeah, man, love.

Sharon Cline: [00:05:30] To have.

Spencer Graves: [00:05:30] You. I think it’d be great. Like he had that whole radio thing. And to me I was like, This feels fake. But I was like, All right, cool. What do I need to do? And he goes, When’s it all start? And I was like, Starts Monday, This is Friday, so I need you to just give me a yes or no and I’ll come in on Monday. He goes, Great, man. I’m going to talk to a couple of people here. I’ll call you this afternoon. And if it works, I’ll see you Monday morning. And I’m like, All right, So I just wait by my phone. This is back when cell phones were basically just out. I had a motorola, but I had snake on it. So I was like, Man, this this game is awesome. Life can’t get better. So he calls me at 330 and I answer the phone and I go, Hey, what’s up? Are we good to go for Monday? And he goes, Man, I’ve got two pieces of information for you. Do you want the good news or the bad news? And I was like, Well, give me the good news. And he goes, Good news is, man, you’re going to be an intern in radio. And I was like, Cool, what’s the bad news? And he goes, It ain’t going to be here because I just quit this bitch.

Sharon Cline: [00:06:35] Oh, my.

Spencer Graves: [00:06:35] God. And at that point I was like, Oh, okay, so what do I do? Do I show up Monday? And he goes, Oh, no, I said, You’re going to be an intern radio, but it won’t be here. So I suggest you call another radio station. I was like, okay, second door slammed in my face. So I called this radio station at like, what, 4:00 in the afternoon? I call the request line. It’s drive time. The guy answers the phone. It’s got that annoying squelch. If you’ve ever called a radio station, he goes and he goes V out of Virginia, it’s Mark. And I was like, Hey, Mark, listen, I’m trying to be an intern in radio. I’ve called a couple other people. They’ve all said, No. Would you guys take interns? Yeah. What is it for? Like college credit? High school credit? What? I said high school credit. Can you drive? Yeah. Can you read? I was like, Yeah, I hope so. All right, man. Well, I got to meet you first. So come in Sunday at noon. I said, Great. So Sunday at noon I drove an hour to get to the radio station. I pull in. I like to be early. I think that’s the best thing in the world, is be 10 minutes early because you’re always on time. And I roll in and at noon, no other cars in the parking lot at 1210. No other cars in the parking lot. Well, I don’t have this guy’s cell phone number. I just called the request line. I know his name is Mark. This is like early Internet days, so I’m still like, not sure if he’s online and it’s before social media, so he can’t just access somebody that quick.

Spencer Graves: [00:08:03] So finally a car comes pulling in and it’s beat up. I mean, it’s five different paint colors. It’s the whole nine. And this little, little black lady gets out of the car and she looks at me and I go, I don’t think her name is Mark, but I’ll give it a shot. So I went up to her and I said, Hi, miss, I’m supposed to meet a guy named Mark here. And you go, Oh, honey. It is Sunday afternoon. Mark does not work on Sunday afternoon. And I was like, So he told me to. And she goes, Come in, I’ll call him. So we go in, find out that she’s a receptionist. Sweet little lady, Miss Martha. And she calls him. She goes, Now listen, Mark, there is a gentleman here. It says He’s supposed to meet you here at noon and you are not here. And he goes, All right, I forgot. I’ll be right in. So he comes in and he’s wearing a polo shirt. It’s untucked. He’s got khaki shorts on, He’s covered in sweat. He’s got the man boob line, the whole deal. And I just looked at him and he goes, Well, I’m sorry that I’m late. And I said, Well, what’d you shoot on the back nine? I called him out. I was like, You had to have been playing golf. Sure enough, he was playing golf. So he goes, Well, I guess I got to give you the job. So that’s how I got the radio. The next day I showed up at 730. I worked for an hour and a half.

Spencer Graves: [00:09:17] Like, got to know everybody in there. So Miss Martha again, took my time, just kind of got into it. And then any time an opportunity came up, like, Will somebody go work? This event first hand raises me. I got you. Well, anybody do a a board op opportunity, which is basically just pushing the buttons. No mic time. You just push the buttons. Hand goes right up. Well, one of the guys that I was working with who was training me on all this stuff, he didn’t show up one day. So this other program director who are the bosses of the radio stations pushes the door open, sees me sitting there, doesn’t see the other person that’s supposed to be there, and he goes, Can you read? And I go, Why is that always a question? I said, Yes, I can read. And he goes, I need you to do the news. 8:00 So read this, do it in two and a half minutes, then push that button and fade this thing up. And I went, okay, so Imus in the Morning, that was the morning show. It was riddled with all sorts of bad publicity later in life because of some things that he said about the Rutgers women’s basketball team. And I’m having to read the news. So I remember I turned the microphone on. I read what was on that paper. It was a weather forecast, a sports report and the top headlines. And then I pushed the button, went back to Imus, and it was flawless. Now, I was probably stumbling all through it. I was nervous, like I’m a senior in high school.

Sharon Cline: [00:10:38] Yeah.

Spencer Graves: [00:10:38] So I was freaked out. But a guy came in and he goes, All right, good. You can read. I was like, Why? Do it at 830. I said, I have to leave and go back to school. He goes, Do it at 830. I was like, okay. So I read the news again for a little more comfortable and did that. So my career in radio that spanned 22 years was all happened by taking an opportunity. The door was open just a little bit. I wanted to put my foot in to make sure.

Sharon Cline: [00:11:07] You showed up.

Spencer Graves: [00:11:08] Right. So it all just kind of spurred from there. And then I was offered, you know, a couple different slots. Like, I’ll never forget I had to come up with a radio name. It was Blake Andrews, so dumb, like my real name, Spencer. But I went with Blake Andrews because I thought that’s what you were supposed to do. And I kept doing these shifts, and then it just grew and grew and grew. Then I did a night show while I was in high school, so everybody in my high school knew I was doing the radio station.

Sharon Cline: [00:11:34] How did that feel, though? Were you sort of bad at it? I mean, I don’t know. Am I allowed to say that?

Spencer Graves: [00:11:38] You can say bad assets on the Internet, You’re fine. It didn’t like when you’re in high school. Yeah. Like you have an ego that’s the size of the world. I think anybody that’s a parent of a kid in high school, like they see it in their kids, their kids egos can be massive. And sometimes you have to get humbled. Well, yeah, I would go to school and people would be like, Listen to your show last night. And I’m like, Thanks, man. And radio at the time, like, we didn’t have podcasts. We didn’t have the access to information that we have now.

Sharon Cline: [00:12:03] Radio was huge. That’s how it was.

Spencer Graves: [00:12:05] It was massive. Yeah. So it was big for me, especially being a senior in high school. But every opportunity I got to go to a party, if I had to work at the radio station, I’m like, I can’t go. I’ll stop by for a little bit, but I have to be at the radio station. So my work ethic was kind of turned there where I was like, If they asked me to be there, I’m going to show up. And I didn’t worry about how much money I was making at the time. I didn’t worry about like, what the benefit to me was. I was just happy that I was helping in a situation where I needed to.

Sharon Cline: [00:12:36] And you liked it.

Spencer Graves: [00:12:37] And I enjoyed it. I really did enjoy it. So yeah, that was that was my life for 22 years and it took me all over the place and I got to see some wonderful things and experience different things. But it was it was just if somebody is going to ask for someone to raise their hand, I threw my hand up.

Sharon Cline: [00:12:53] What was your favorite part about radio Over the years when you can look, what do you have some highlight moments where you were just like, This is when I was the most happy.

Spencer Graves: [00:13:01] It’s. I have this weird feeling that I’m never happy.

Sharon Cline: [00:13:07] What do you mean? Well.

Spencer Graves: [00:13:09] It’s. It’s not like I’m always sad all the time, or I’m down or I’m depressed. It’s not that. I’m happy, but I’m always hungry. Okay, like I’m content doing what we’re doing, but it can be better and I always want better. So I’m always looking for what’s that next layer to make things better. So when you talk about moments, yeah, there were some huge moments in my career and and I tell people all the time it was calculated chaos. I knew what I was going to do would bring some chaos. But I also knew if the chaos went too far to the right, I could handle that. If the chaos went too far to the left, here’s what would I what I would do to mitigate that.

Sharon Cline: [00:13:48] You had a plan, correct?

Spencer Graves: [00:13:50] So where it seems like it was reckless abandonment and I was just going nuts, like, I’ll bring you to one story. It was 4th of July. I knew in the summer that radio stations ratings are always a little wonky. But I also knew that if I got people to pay attention to the radio station or at least knew my name, that it would be beneficial for the radio station. So I told my co-host, I’m going to set fireworks off in the studio.

Sharon Cline: [00:14:16] Oh, my gosh.

Spencer Graves: [00:14:16] Now, fireworks in the state of Delaware were illegal. But in Pennsylvania, the neighboring state, which is where I lived, I mean, it was we were separated by the state line. It was 10 minutes from where I lived to the studio. I could buy fireworks in Pennsylvania and then bootleg them into Delaware. So that’s what I did. I took I took fireworks and I said, Hey, Nancy, it’s 4th of July. I just want to celebrate with you. I figured I’d give you your own fireworks show right here in the studio. And I let these fireworks and I threw them over behind her and they just start going off and they’re daisy chains. So they’re all connected, right? As soon as you light the wick, it’s on and it won’t stop until it’s done. And fireworks are going off. It’s all over the place. The smoke is starting to fill the studio. She’s dying laughing. I’m laughing my tail off. She’s screaming because the pops are so close. And at the end I just said, I hope everybody has a great 4th of July. I probably won’t see you on July 6th. And that was how we got out of the break. So that was a big one. A lot of people still mentioned that to me today, but I knew that if I was going to receive backlash from that, how I would handle those conversations. Now, what a lot of people don’t know is I had told management this was my plan.

Spencer Graves: [00:15:31] I was going to do it the safest way possible. I had a fire extinguisher ready to go. I was throwing the fireworks into an area where nothing was going to catch on fire. I just needed the sound and they were like, okay, well, we trust you to do what you got to do. So that’s memorable. But when you asked me what my favorite parts of radio were, honestly, it was the connections with people who listened and the greatest thing that ever happened in radio and it exists to this day is social media. The fact that what we do on the radio could impact somebody driving in their car, sitting at their desk, listening in their kitchen, waking up to having it on their phone. The fact that they can go to your social media and say what you just said, did X, Y, and Z, or I remember when you did it blank, blank, blank. Those relationships, even though I’m not on the radio and haven’t been on the radio since November of 2021, I have had great conversations with people. I still know, like if I see their name pop up, they probably don’t know this, but I know exactly who they are. I know exactly what town they listened in. I know what radio station I was on. I can remember previous conversations that we had, so I’ll ask them every once in awhile, like about their kids or about their dog.

Sharon Cline: [00:16:52] So sweet.

Spencer Graves: [00:16:53] Those personal connections. Like, you can’t get away from that. And I don’t care what business you’re in. Radio is one, but it could be any industry if you don’t make personal connections to people, if you don’t have good relationships with your consumer, with your staff, with your management team, or if you are the management team with other people in your industry all throughout the world and all throughout the country, you’re not going to be successful. So you have to take a vested interest in the people who are taking somewhat of a vested interest in what you’re trying to do.

Sharon Cline: [00:17:24] But you have a natural propensity for that connection. Yeah. I think if you don’t love people, it’s probably too much.

Spencer Graves: [00:17:32] Especially women. But know I do. I love people. And I didn’t get into radio for music. I thought music was actually the the worst part about radio. I thought the best part about radio were the stories that people could tell.

Sharon Cline: [00:17:45] Opportunities to to meet and connect.

Spencer Graves: [00:17:47] And I mean, those stories, they weave the fabric of our life. It’s everything that they talk about is something that somebody else is going through. Like before I met you today, I stopped and I had a burger at a chain and I got a phone call from a client of mine, and I was just giving her a reminder that, hey, it is Christmastime, it’s Hanukkah, it’s the holidays. You need to make sure that you’re saying to the people who use your business, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, happy holidays, whatever somebody celebrates. But you want to make sure you’re making that connection. And I asked her, I said, what weird thing did your family do at the holidays that was like your family’s deal? Because my family gifts from Santa’s Santa’s workshop, they don’t have the wrapping paper that my mom has. They have aluminum foil like they’ve already built all the toys. They’ve already done everything.

Sharon Cline: [00:18:39] They’re not time for nice.

Spencer Graves: [00:18:40] They spend time on nice wrapping paper. Like he’s like, get it done. Efficiency is key when it comes to business. So, elves, let’s go.

Sharon Cline: [00:18:47] That’s so cool. So you had all your presents wrapped in tin foil.

Spencer Graves: [00:18:50] All in tin foil. And then at the end, we would take all the tin foil. We make it into a giant ball in every year. We had a picture in front of the Christmas tree with a giant ball of aluminum foil.

Sharon Cline: [00:19:00] That is so cute.

Spencer Graves: [00:19:01] And that was our family thing. So I was asking her and she said to me, she goes, People do this in conversations all the time. Oh God, this is probably stupid to most people. But and I listen to what she said and her family has an ornament and it’s a little guitar with a music note. That’s it. And every Christmas that ornament goes away. Somebody takes it. But then it magically appears the next holiday when somebody opens up a gift and the ornament is in the gift. O And then it goes on the tree. And then surely someone takes it, hides it, puts it in the gift the next year. And she’s like, That’s probably dumb to most people. I said, Absolutely not. That’s sweet. Those are the things that make you from this transcendent area where people can’t touch you and they don’t think you’re like them to wow God, they really are just like us. And I’ve always thought that if we can continue to talk about our similarities, it gets us away from the perceived differences.

Sharon Cline: [00:20:06] So true.

Spencer Graves: [00:20:06] I mean, I don’t care what color you are, I don’t care what nationality you are. I don’t care what your sexual orientation is. The fabric of who we are is people. We all have similar connections. It’s being able to go through conversation and find those so we can find the common ground, so we can have articulate and good conversations.

Sharon Cline: [00:20:24] Do you find that people have that perception of you throughout your career that you’re someone that’s sort of untouchable or un relatable, or do you feel like your personality opens up that connection?

Spencer Graves: [00:20:36] I want to believe that my personality opens up those.

Sharon Cline: [00:20:40] So I think so.

Spencer Graves: [00:20:41] But I think there’s a lot of people and I’ve had to do a lot of growing. I think we all do. Right? But, you know, early on in my career, my ego was massive. I mean, I felt like I was untouchable because I’m on the radio. Well, I don’t have a.

Sharon Cline: [00:20:55] Corporation behind you.

Spencer Graves: [00:20:57] Supporting you. I understand what you do in your business, and I understand, but. But I’m on the radio, and, you know, I do my thing, and my ego was massive. I mean, I wouldn’t be able to fit in the studio with the size of my head. But what I really started to to realize were my Angelo had had a quote, and I know I’m going to misquote it, but it’s not what you do to somebody. It’s what you say. It’s something along.

Sharon Cline: [00:21:20] Those lines feel. It’s not what they said, but it’s how how they correct you.

Spencer Graves: [00:21:23] Yeah, People will always remember the way you made them feel. And there were plenty of times in my life and I’ve had to take some mental checks on this where I didn’t necessarily make people feel the best. But I may have said things at the time that were brash, and I think we all have friends that do this. I’m not being mean. I’m just being honest. They say something like that. Well, sure, but it’s also coming off very mean. Perception to most people is reality. If they perceive you a certain way, they’re just going to believe that that’s the way that you are. And changing somebody’s perception is really, really hard to do. So I’ve taken some real strong mental keys on my own personal keys and conversations. But I do think at the essence, all I’ve ever tried to do was try to connect the dots between who you are, who I am and what draws us together.

Sharon Cline: [00:22:12] But you know, it it requires a vulnerability to even admit that.

Spencer Graves: [00:22:16] Well, thank you. But yes, I think if you if you could be introspective, you can be more vulnerable. It creates better relationships. It allows you to be more intimate, not in the physical sense, but in a mental and spiritual sense, where you’re you’re really tying to somebody. You know, I’ve I’ve gone through my life where I’m like, Oh, I’ll get married at some point. Well, now I’m 40. And part of me is like, I wasn’t creating the relationships personally that I should have. I kept everybody in a box of, well, they know me because of radio. So that’s kind of just where where they stay. But ultimately, what I’ve always wanted is I’ve wanted those relationships to become stronger relationships on the other side.

Sharon Cline: [00:23:02] And I don’t know when you say should have had different relationships, I kind of feel like where you are is where you’re supposed to be. Do you know what I mean? Like who you are today is not who you were then. So whatever relationships you could have had may not have been the best ones for you, for where you are now.

Spencer Graves: [00:23:17] Like the philosophical side of the way that you lived your life is the way you should have, because it brought you to the moment that you’re in now, right? If I didn’t live the life that I had or if I didn’t have such a massive ego, I wouldn’t have been able to seek clarity at some point. And I think everybody is still a work of art. I mean, I think everybody is a work in progress and life continues to carry on. But I do I try to take stock in trying to make sure that my actions help somebody feel better or makes them realize that I’m focused on them, you know? Ryan Seacrest gets a lot of flack for being who he is in the broadcast world. Like, people are always like, Oh, he’s Ryan Seacrest, He’s untouchable. He’s had all this stuff.

Sharon Cline: [00:23:59] Oh, I didn’t know that.

Spencer Graves: [00:24:00] But if you ever meet Ryan Seacrest.

Sharon Cline: [00:24:02] He’s from this area. He’s from Dunwoody. I want to.

Spencer Graves: [00:24:04] Say he is he will give you his undivided attention if you’re in a conversation with him. And when you’re somebody who’s on the outside looking in until you witness it, you don’t realize how much of an impact that has. When the world sounds like everybody in their mother is trying to get your attention and you’ve got all these voices just bouncing around, but you’re in one conversation with one person to witness that and to see it in action. That was a mental check for me where I was like, That’s it.

Sharon Cline: [00:24:35] Because he doesn’t even have to do that. No, no, he doesn’t have to invest in anyone.

Spencer Graves: [00:24:39] But he does like he does because he is a purveyor of people. He likes the fact that people have a story. And, you know, I don’t want to speak 100% for him, but. That’s what I get out of those interactions when I see somebody who locks into a conversation and talking to that person, then when the conversation is over, it was a pleasure meeting you. I hope you have a great holiday. Tell your mom I said hi. Like all those anecdotal things that everybody’s always heard. If you go to the next person, they do it to the next person. And when you see those connections, it’s what builds stronger relationships down the line. So that’s what I have sought out to do over the past couple of years.

Sharon Cline: [00:25:17] Well, what is it like to be a sort of almost like you are a family member to thousands of people? Like, what is that like.

Spencer Graves: [00:25:25] Oh, it’s weird. It’s weird. You know, I when I would when I would have conversations on a morning show. I always had to remember that the majority of people who listen to radio are doing it on their their ride into the into the office. And for most people, it was when they were driving into the office, we were sitting in an unoccupied seat in their vehicle, whether it was the passenger seat or we were sitting in the back. And then I also have to remember that I’m a voice that comes out of your dash. But when I’m talking to you, if I can get you talking to yourself in the car, it’s one of my favorite things. If I feel like you’re screaming at the radio because of something I said in my mind, I know what I’m saying. And I believe I know what response I’m trying to elicit. So I’ll immediately say, Well, call me if you disagree. And it was almost instantaneous from the time you say it to where you see the light, the phone light up knowing somebody was on. It’s kind of like fishing. I cast the line out.

Sharon Cline: [00:26:28] See what happens.

Spencer Graves: [00:26:29] All of a sudden, I set the hook and I knew that I had somebody on the line. And as soon as you bring them into the conversation, that’s where the dynamic changes. Now I’ve got somebody who I’ve had a personal conversation with. Millions of people have heard it. And then you go to the next person and the next person. So it’s interesting. It’s it’s great to feel like you’re a part of somebody’s family. And I’ve received Christmas cards from people before, which is awesome.

Sharon Cline: [00:26:54] So sweet.

Spencer Graves: [00:26:55] But it is it’s it’s that’s the thing in radio that always kind of drives you is I know what I’m saying is going to draw a reaction out of somebody, but I want to make sure that they have a positive interaction. It may have been a negative thought that they may have had, but as long as they’re enjoying the conversation and we end up hanging up the phone and saying, hey, I hope you have a great holiday, I hope you have a great day. That’s what I lived for. Those were the moments that I like the most.

Sharon Cline: [00:27:22] Did you feel when you were on radio that you were limited at all as to who you kind of naturally are? You had to kind of tone down something or change yourself to be to fit what radio is sort of expects of you. In other words, like now, do you feel like you can kind of be more who you are without as much restriction?

Spencer Graves: [00:27:41] The only restrictions that I feel like I ever had in radio was actually more simple guidance than it was anything else. You know, the First Amendment protects all of us to be able to say whatever we want. But it doesn’t protect you from the consequences of how someone feels about you. It doesn’t protect you against the persona that people may believe. And we touched on this earlier. Perception is reality. So I’ve had bosses in the past that are like, do not get political about X, Y, and Z. Don’t say what you really believe about a social construct because you’re going to turn some people off. So the radio station didn’t want to lose listeners. But in the same breath, they’re telling us, Be 100% authentic with your audience. So how do you do that? How do you be 100% authentic when they’re telling you, But don’t say this. I understood where it was coming from. I understood that it was more of them trying to guide, and there were plenty of things that I said that weren’t even political, but I knew out of a story that I could raise some eyebrows. And I’m okay with raising eyebrows. You look at the Twitter world right now with Elon Musk being the CEO. Elon Musk is doing exactly what radio stations have wanted to do since the time radio station started.

Spencer Graves: [00:29:05] He gets people’s eyes on their brand. And if a radio station has somebody like Howard Stern, that’s exactly what Stern did in the late eighties and all throughout the nineties is he would say things on terrestrial radio because we all have things that we can’t say in radio. We all have the FCC, which their guidelines say you can’t say X, Y and Z, but if somebody complains and sends it in, we’ll have to do an investigation and then we decide. But radio stations took that and have said, well, just don’t say it. Don’t cause any problems for us to believe that an investigation is going to happen. But with Elon Musk, you know, he puts up a Twitter poll the other day and he’s like, do you want me to be the CEO? Whatever you guys decide, I’ll do. It’s the biggest bit in the history of social media. And it’s it’s exactly what a radio station would do if you don’t want me to be here. Click on this poll and I’ll quit tomorrow. Well, has he quit? Is the poll over? No. He finds out all this information about how people like him or think about him or view him and he looks at all those accounts or has somebody else who’s looking at all this. I can’t imagine that Elon Musk is literally sitting there looking at every single account.

Spencer Graves: [00:30:19] But he’s he’s taking that information and he’s using it as ammo and fueling the fire because Twitter was a business that was floundering. They were looking for a buyer. They got a buyer. Social media is really hard to monetize. Facebook has shown that Instagram when they got bought by Facebook. Now the world believes that, oh, well, they’re equal. No, Facebook wants to take people from Instagram and get them back to their platform because of the ad revenue and the dollars. And you have to you have to think a little deeper. So with me and things in radio, like you have to think of the overall picture, am I going to say something that pisses off so many people that I’m no longer going to be on the radio? No, I don’t want to do that. But I also want to say enough to where people go. Did you hear what happened with Spencer Graves this morning on the radio station? And that to me was the most important thing. If you get people talking about you, it’s the best thing in the world and there’s ego behind that, but there’s also the calculated chaos. You have to know what you’re going to say and where you can go from there.

Sharon Cline: [00:31:27] But I think there’s healthy ego. There’s ego out of control, but then there’s healthy ego. Like I’m sure I have enough of an ego to believe that something I have to say could have some impact somewhere. Why else would I be doing this? Right? Right. But it’s not. Look at me. Look at me. I’m so great. I like the idea of connection and I like the idea of people knowing even in our little Woodstock, you know, the person behind the business. It’s not just business. It’s not a plumber. It’s. Oh, this is Justin the plumber. So you can identify with the person behind the business. And that’s the goal for me. So but but I do believe there can be there’s a balance. And I imagine if you go too far, it’s very obvious that you’re really not thinking about connection as much as you’re thinking about yourself.

Spencer Graves: [00:32:08] Well, and you have your personal relationships. And then when you go to work, you know, you don’t want your personal relationships to impact what you do at work. So a lot of people have heard like, hey, leave your bees at the door. You know, don’t come in here with a bad mood. Yeah. With other things that are going on, like we’re here to work. And while that’s true. Your life outside of your job truly does impact how you are like. I think every one of us has worked with somebody that’s going through a hard time in their life and you know, you see them struggling. So what do we do? Continue to push the pressure down and go, Hey, buck up, You got to figure this out. No, Sometimes somebody just wants to know that they’re being heard and just put their arm around them and go, hey, listen, I get what you’re going through. It’s okay to to struggle and go what you’re going through. If you need my help and you want me to help you, I will. But remember, we got to try to get through things as fast as we can. I worked in a sales job for a very short period of time in San Diego, and one of the conversations that I had with the CEO, you know, this is an Internet marketing firm.

Spencer Graves: [00:33:14] It was in the height of the dotcom era. They were trying to get everybody into their company for marketing. The first thing he said to me was fail forward fast. If you mess up, remember how you messed up, Don’t do it again. Fix it. And that’s always stuck with me. Like, if you’re going to mess up, it’s going to happen. Everybody messes up. But take a mental stock of what happened, What did you do and what happened? From there, you either messed up and fixed it or you messed up and continued to mess up and continue to mess up. When I played college baseball, it’s the same thing. If somebody hit a line driving me and I made an error. The worst thing you can do is baseball players put your head down and think about that error because that ball is going to find you again and you’re going to make another error. So now you’ve got to turn that. You’ve got to turn that fear into hunger where you’re like, I messed up, but I want you to try again because I know I will be able to win this round.

Sharon Cline: [00:34:13] I love that because I have mistakes or regret moments in my life all the time. And I think, why am I so hard on myself? Why is it not just normal to make an error or a mistake or fall? I mean, I’m seeing a therapist right now and we’re talking all about this stuff, but it’s sort of like allowing myself to get back up. That’s a big thing is is to not let something take me down so hard. And I think in a public way, it must be very difficult to make mistakes. You know, in in on on radio where I don’t even know if you have I’m just saying as a general statement, like out there in the world, how would you how do you manage the feelings behind that?

Spencer Graves: [00:34:50] I think the sad part about the on the radio or a very public thing is, yes, I had to live my life extremely public, and I still do on social media like I don’t I don’t hide behind anything. I use my real name and always have. And I know what I’ve done in my life so I can fess up and I can talk about things that I’ve done, like I have an answer for why things are the way that they are. I’m unapologetic about that. Like, that’s the only way that you can live where you have the ability to put your head down at night. But to make mistakes on the radio, like, yeah, did I make some mistakes on radio? Sure. Or are they things that most listeners would would recognize or see? No, Like it’s it’s a mistake that you make within the business. But not everybody knows. But I.

Sharon Cline: [00:35:32] Know, right?

Spencer Graves: [00:35:32] So I’m like, God, don’t do that again. Don’t struggle again. Don’t make that same mistake. So that was that. But the bad part about radio is when people leave radio stations, they never get an opportunity to say why they were leaving. And I understand that from a business thing like you just either had somebody quit or you terminated somebody, the last thing you’re going to do is hand them a microphone and go tell everyone what happened. They’re not going to do that. But I’ll get numerous questions about like, well, why did you leave the radio station? What happened? Where were you? Where were you wanting to go? What decisions were being made? I wanted to be there. I wanted to continue to work there. I had numerous questions thrown at me about who I could work with. And, you know, is this person a right fit and all that kind of stuff? And my answer was always the same. I can work with anyone. If you have somebody who sits across from me, I can work with them. But it’s got to be a cohesive unit. Like it has to feel like the ship is going in the right direction and it’s no different than any other business. If we were all on a rowing team and one person was not rowing in rhythm with everybody else, we wouldn’t win. So. It paints the picture of the mistakes, like you have to be in sync with the people that you work with on a daily basis.

Spencer Graves: [00:36:50] And if you have things that bother you outside, you have to push that down for a minute and perform when you’re able to perform. And then you can talk about like, hey, I’m actually struggling with this. You know, this is happening in my world. I could really use a break. Then as a business owner, you have to look at your bench. You have to look at your team members and go, okay, who can fill in while Sabrina is going through X, Y, and Z? Who can fill in? You know, I think Ashley would be a great person to put into this role. Great. Ashley comes in. Ashley. Here’s the deal. Sabrina is struggling right now. We know that. We’re working with her. We need you to pick up the pieces a little bit. And then when Sabrina is ready to come back, we’ll do X, Y, and Z. If everybody’s working together, that well-oiled machine, that’s the only way you’re going to have success. So the big thing is identifying who you have, what their strengths are, what their weaknesses are, and trying to highlight what everybody is best at. But don’t be afraid as an owner or a manager, or even just as a coworker to witness that somebody is struggling. Put your arm around them and go help you out. But remember, we got to try to work on this and we’ve got to knock this out.

Sharon Cline: [00:38:01] Is that also how you approach your social caste marketing business is that you are able to identify your clients strengths and weaknesses and kind of how they can use those, harness them.

Spencer Graves: [00:38:12] Yeah. So the big part about social class marketing is, you know, the term marketing gets thrown around by everybody, but it is like in the world of marketing and media and. You kind of have to fall into a lane. We do a lot of social media management, but it’s a lot of personal development. So the consulting side, the coaching side is to highlight what strengths somebody has and then be able to maximize on that. Like I have clients that are personalities, I have clients that are people and they have their own individual brands. So what can we do with them as a person to highlight their brand? And I take a lot of things from radio and I pull that over. Now, if it’s a business and they’re selling a product, we really look at it and we go, okay, who’s going to speak on behalf of the product? Who’s going to be the person that delivers the message? Who’s creating those messages? And we organize the team and then we help them create the messages, come up with the content, look at the strategy that they’re doing online, Look at the strategy. If they go with traditional marketing, if they’re going with radio, TV, print, like it doesn’t matter if you’re putting your message out, we want to be able to help you create a good message, build your message, and then we’ll help you get it out. But I also want to know who’s going to represent your company because I want to make sure they’re clear and concise in the message that you’re trying to do. So I work with some CEOs on public speaking. You know how to look at somebody and how to hold your hands and be in a position of power to where you don’t look like you’re disinterested, you don’t look like you’re bored.

Sharon Cline: [00:39:52] Checking your phone.

Spencer Graves: [00:39:53] Right. That’s like a big one. But we go through everything. So we’re not just somebody that’s going to handle your direct mail campaign as successful as those have been in the past, we look at it as what’s going to make you have an emotional connection with the people that use your product. And every product does. I mean, whether it’s a Dyson Airwrap, I’ve never met a woman that had a Dyson Airwrap that doesn’t say she has a Dyson Airwrap You know, she doesn’t, she doesn’t go, I have this thing that, like, sucks my hair, but then there’s heat and it makes it curl like, I don’t know, they say I have a Dyson Airwrap. It’s almost like a position of power where you’re like, Well, that’s great. You had you had some other brand, but I have a Dyson Airwrap. Those are the types of emotional connections that brands can make, and you can only do that when the message is succinct and everybody is on the same path.

Sharon Cline: [00:40:48] What’s your favorite part about it?

Spencer Graves: [00:40:50] About social class marketing. I love being my own boss. Yeah, I love not having somebody who says like, you have to do this. Now. With that being said, I do have a lot of mentors, like I have a lot of business mentors. I had a lot of radio mentors, and I consider them not just mentors, but really friends. And and I really do. I lean on a lot of their expertise and their experiences to kind of cultivate what I would do. So we all have a boss at some point in our life, even if you own the company. I mean, Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon, everybody is like, You don’t have to listen to anybody. Yeah, right. It’s not Jeff Bezos making that company scale the way that company.

Sharon Cline: [00:41:31] Scale by himself.

Spencer Graves: [00:41:32] Everybody has to assemble a team and you have to look at your team and you got to look at the core and go, okay, I know this person works well with me, but will they work well with the core of the group? And you have to know who you’re going to be bringing in to those spaces. You know, companies fail because the leadership companies don’t fail because of the people underneath. The people underneath were selected by the management. If the management is not clear and concise and succinct about how they’re getting their messages out, companies fail and someone has to recognize that and then hold people accountable. So the consulting side of what we do, I love that. I love being able to witness people who are extremely vulnerable and can lay out their strengths in their weaknesses and say, I need to do better at this, but I’m really good at doing X, Y, and Z. You know, we mentioned Elon Musk earlier. Elon Musk is a phenomenal mind. He’s a very, very intelligent person who thinks in abstract views and looks at things differently. But is he the best person to buy Twitter? Who knows?

Sharon Cline: [00:42:34] Like it’s still being played out, right?

Spencer Graves: [00:42:37] That’s that’s the wild, wild West. Like social media was created in a college dorm room and it has created a revolution from Facebook and MySpace and Instagram and Snapchat and Tik Tok and I mean, you name it and Twitter and everybody that’s involved. So do I think that people who have crazy amounts of money can run any industry? Not necessarily. But I do believe that good leaders can lead no matter what position they’re in.

Sharon Cline: [00:43:06] What are some characteristics of a good leader? I think anyone who’s listening would like to.

Spencer Graves: [00:43:09] Know Empathy is probably the strongest one self-awareness, being able to understand what people are going through and really have an active interest in what their team is going through. You know, I think all of us can look at managing. And bosses that we’ve had in our past and go, you know, I didn’t I didn’t necessarily love the job I was doing, but I loved the manager or I loved my boss. People have probably said, well, you know, I started to outgrow. Well, if you outgrow within one company, the company’s not bad. They just had somebody that was in that spot that was doing it, that worked well for them. If you can go to another company and you can start to manage up where you’re empathetic, where you’re able to recognize what’s happening on a team and you can put your arm around them and say, Hey, look, let’s get through this together. No man Left behind kind of thing. Those are the things that are going to make you successful. So the world isn’t against you, you’re just against yourself. So you have to understand these are my strengths, these are my weaknesses. I either need to work on those or I need to highlight my strengths and then hire around my weaknesses. I need to find people that are really good at what I’m not great at doing.

Sharon Cline: [00:44:18] Do you think that’s the biggest challenge? Is finding just the right fit? Is that everything.

Spencer Graves: [00:44:23] I need at this at this stage in the game, it’s 2022, getting ready to go into 2023. We just had a year and a half of supply chain issues and nobody wants to work. And how are these people doing it? Like, I mean, all these things. But it’s true. Like restaurants have had a hard time finding good staff. And the thing is, you can hire to fill a quota. You could hire people and say, I’ve got 20 people on staff, but do you have 20 solid people on staff? Finding great applicants now is really hard. And I know the argument has come up about like, well, the people demand better pay. Well, sure, everybody demands better pay, but what job are you doing that creates that pay? You know? With the WNBA and all the restructuring of their contracts that they’ve always asked for. You know, it’s a revenue thing. I mean, it’s always going to come down to money. You can’t ask for the world if the company itself doesn’t make a product. That demand is in demand by everyone in the world. You know, Scrub Daddy, one of the greatest products to ever make it onto Shark Tank, makes a ton of money. It’s a it’s a brush.

Sharon Cline: [00:45:31] Like I have a couple of them.

Spencer Graves: [00:45:33] They’re awesome. They’re awesome, right? They’ve created such brand awareness to where you’re like, Oh my God, I love the scrub daddy. But even in the pitch, you know, what product do you have? You have a scrub daddy. The CEO and the creator of it goes, Oh, don’t worry, I’m coming out with a scrub, baby. I got a scrub, Mommy. I’ve got a whole scrub family. And when you look at that brain, do you sit there and go, This guy went into it and he knew what his strengths were. He knew that he had one product. It was going to be a good product, but he was already thinking of the controlled chaos. If you buy into this, I’m going to have X, Y and Z that also comes along with it.

Sharon Cline: [00:46:10] It’s going to grow. It’s going to.

Spencer Graves: [00:46:11] Grow. I’m just looking for you to do it. So I think with with brands and the awareness of of the management team, you have to take an active interest. You have to know what you’re trying to do and you have to keep things simple. You know, the scrub daddy thing was solely because everybody has a sink, whether it’s an apartment or a house or a mansion. Everyone has a sink. So you can sit there and go, I can sell that product to everybody in the world. Well, there’s good money in that. But you’re also talking about a unit that costs less than 5.99. So you know how many of those you have to sell in order to make crazy amounts of money? A lot. So if people looked at the money within the company that they’re working for or the product that we sell, how many clients do we have using this product? That’s kind of where we are. And then you look at the pays down from there.

Sharon Cline: [00:47:01] It is a quality product too.

Spencer Graves: [00:47:03] Like, well, the scrub daddy, I can tell you you’re beaming. I mean, as soon as I brought the scrub daddy, your, your smile went ear to ear. So yes.

Sharon Cline: [00:47:11] Cleaning. I have issues. Well, I also wanted to switch gears slightly and talk a little bit about your involvement in the Alzheimer’s Association. Are you okay to talk about. Oh, absolutely. I didn’t ask you beforehand.

Spencer Graves: [00:47:23] No, no, no. I’ll give you I’ll give you the story. So my mom was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s when she was 55. And I was just having a conversation with a friend of mine the other day. That is 55. She was young and she’s 71 now. And most people are like, this is an extremely traumatic story. And it is like anybody who has a family member that’s gone through any sort of dementia, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, Lewy body, like they’re subsets of all this. Anybody that’s seen a family member go through it, it’s gut wrenching. It’s the worst thing in the world.

Sharon Cline: [00:47:56] I can’t even get my brain there. I think one of the things that we talked about, you and I briefly, is about how people have kind of commented lately at how you’re willing to post things that are very vulnerable about your life and that they’re almost surprised at that, which I find surprising in itself. So I love that you’re willing to even talk about the emotion behind what it’s like to have a family member like this, specifically your mom, and what it means to you to participate in it. So I’m just really glad that you’re willing to talk about it.

Spencer Graves: [00:48:24] Well, at this point, and thank you. But at this point, I can talk about what’s going on with my mother because my mother physically can’t. Like, what happens with Alzheimer’s is most people are like, oh, they forgot my name, they forgot my birthday, they don’t remember where they are. That is a very small part of Alzheimer’s. Alzheimer’s is the brain not relaying messages to the rest of the body. And the body forgets how to be a body. One of the worst parts about Alzheimer’s and I don’t highlight these much, but it is reality. They’ll eat, somebody will eat and their brain will not tell their throat in their mouth what to do. So it’s it’s traumatic. You can walk, but then your brain doesn’t tell your leg to take that next step. You fall and you break a hip. You have to get put into a wheelchair. Like my mom is non-verbal. So witnessing all these things that happen with my mother, it’s it’s terrible. It is a awful place to be. It’s bad to watch. My family is very fortunate. However, my dad has owned and operated memory care facilities since 1970, so my father owns the memory care facility that my mom grew up watching him build.

Spencer Graves: [00:49:45] That’s where my dad’s success came from as an entrepreneur to my mom being put into that facility. And now my dad’s 71, my mom’s 71. And I’ve hinted to my dad like, Well, what are you going to do with the nursing home? Like, we can’t forget that you’re still 71 years old. What are you planning on doing with that facility? And he’s like, Well, you know, I’d like to sell it. And I’m like, okay, when? And my dad’s is always the same. I won’t sell that until your mom passes. And while I think it’s the most beautiful sentiment because my dad’s like, I want to be able to control what happens with her care. And I don’t think some of these big organizations will care. And I said they won’t. You were correct about that. So I can appreciate my dad wanting to do that. But there’s a lot of life that can live like, you know, Is my mom on a faster decline than my father? Yes. But you never know what happens in this world. Like it’s it’s wild. But to get back to the story about how my mom was diagnosed, I just had this conversation with somebody the other day 55.

Sharon Cline: [00:50:46] I mean, that’s just a couple of years older than me.

Spencer Graves: [00:50:48] She was still working. I mean, she’s she was forced into early retirement from it. And when I got done working with NASCAR and I came off the road, I was back living in Virginia at my parents house, and my parents knew I wasn’t going to be there. I mean, I never even unpacked my bags. I put three cities in a hat and I told my dad to draw one out on a monday and he pulled out San Diego, California, and he goes, When are you going to move to San Diego? I said, I’m leaving Friday. So I drove two and a half days from Virginia to San Diego, 18 hours a day to get there and start something new. And I didn’t realize this until a couple of days ago. When I was pulling out of my driveway Friday morning. My parents do what I think most parents would do is they walk out and they wave, you know.

Sharon Cline: [00:51:34] And I’m around each other kind of thing.

Spencer Graves: [00:51:35] Yeah, 100%. And, you know, my dad’s six two. My mom was five four. I’m six five and my brother six, eight, like the parallel of size and then witnessing their silhouette. And I’ll never forget, like, I’m looking at them in the rear view and they’re getting smaller and smaller and smaller, but they’re waving the whole time. And then when they’re underneath the horizon, I can’t see him anymore. I didn’t realize this until the other day. That was the last time I saw my mom before she got diagnosed. And here I am, her baby flying the nest and saying, I’ll see you later. And I don’t know how my life would have changed had I stayed if I knew that my mom was going to get diagnosed and I stayed. I don’t know how my life would change, but I did know that once my mom got diagnosed, I had a massive platform. I had a radio station. I was working in Wilmington, Delaware, on a powerhouse radio station. And I remember going on the air and at the time I couldn’t get through like I would write notes on the radio to my mother every Mother’s Day. And the first time I did it, I had so much bravado, Oh, man, I’m going to knock this thing out like I had it all written down. I couldn’t get through. Hey, mom, without breaking into tears. And even now, like, I still get choked up about it. But it doesn’t bother me because someone has to tell the story. So with my mom, you know, I’ve witnessed the good parts of of her life dealing with this. I’ve witnessed the absolute terrible and I’ve seen the ugly. I mean, it it all exists.

Sharon Cline: [00:53:12] What do you think people don’t know about Alzheimer’s?

Spencer Graves: [00:53:14] The big one is most people don’t know that it’s the body forgetting how to be a body. That’s what people don’t talk about.

Sharon Cline: [00:53:19] I think I never really actually put that together.

Spencer Graves: [00:53:21] Until most people are like, they don’t remember me. My mom. I’ll never forget the day I found out that my mom didn’t know who I was. Shortly after my grandmother died, they were going back to Virginia from Connecticut after my grandmother service and they stopped in Wilmington to go have lunch. And we went and had lunch and my mom rode with me in my truck to the restaurant. My dad drove by himself and when we got out, my mom was, you know, kind of keeping her head down. And I was like, Come on, mom. She just kind of walked along with us. And she goes in. When we sat down at the table, server came over, ask the normal question, What can I get you guys to drink? I said, I have a Mountain Dew. And my dad says, What would you like to drink? And my mom just kept her head down. She just kind of shook know. And my dad says, okay, she’ll have an unsweetened tea and I’ll have a Coke or a water if you have it. And my dad looked at my mom and said, Is everything okay? And she goes, Who’s that man that’s sitting across from us? And my dad said, to my dad’s credit, which he’s always done, he’s been very levelheaded. He goes, Well, Dale, my mom’s name, that’s your son, Spencer.

Spencer Graves: [00:54:32] He didn’t want to just say that your son. He wanted to make sure that she heard my name. So my mom just kind of looked at me. Tears were streaming down her face, and then she excused herself to go to the bathroom. And when she came back, it was like a light switch. Oh, my God. Spencer. Oh, my goodness. When did you get here? And that’s when I realized I remember I looked to my dad and when we went out and my mom was getting in the truck, excuse me, my mom was getting in the truck. I looked at my dad and I said, So that’s it. She doesn’t she doesn’t recognize who I am now. I left the house when I was 17. I came back for two weeks before I moved to San Diego. So I had been on the road and completely away from my parents for years. So I can understand why my mom would probably look at me and not witness that her youngest son is six five. Deeper voice. A big beard. No longer has that baby bowl cut. Doesn’t wear Abercrombie and Fitch and Hollister clothes with cargo shorts anymore. Like everything that she remembered that I was in high school. Skinny is a rail puka shell necklace, like all the douchey things in the world.

Sharon Cline: [00:55:44] You’re a big man.

Spencer Graves: [00:55:46] My. My mom was looking at this person like. That’s a that’s a that’s a man. Like, that’s not. That’s not the boy that I remember seeing. But one of the greatest stories that I have about my mother is in her nursing home, the one that my father runs. We have those big double glass doors and it’s got that film on it that kind of makes people look like a silhouette when they get behind it. So you can’t look through a lot of medical. Yeah, privacy. The medical facilities have them. Well, I was just witnessing my mom kind of walk around. My mom at the time when she was walking, she would walk down. She’d go through the double doors. She’d stop. She turned to the right and she’d stare at the wall for about 30 seconds. And I would see, like, the silhouette of her arm moving and things like that. When she opened up the door, she walked back down the hallway, walked right by me. Her baby just walked right by me. Doesn’t look at me. Look through me like it’s a very weird feeling. And I looked at the nurses that were on staff, and I go, well, she go down that hallway for it, and they go, We don’t know if she goes down there every day at about 1030 in the morning. So I’m like, All right. So my mom walks into her room, goes to, lays down. She sleeps about 18, 19 hours a day. And I walked down and I went through and it was a picture of our family from when I was in high school. My brother was a freshman in college, and my mom and my dad know, and she just looks at the picture now. I don’t I don’t know what’s going on in her mind, whether or not she recognize it. But to me, that was very telling. I was like, I think she I think she gets it.

Sharon Cline: [00:57:17] She’s in there still.

Spencer Graves: [00:57:18] Right. It kind of feels like she’s fallen down a well and every day she gets a little further down and I can’t reach down enough to get her and nobody else can. She’s falling at a faster rate than we’re able to get down to get to her.

Sharon Cline: [00:57:34] So how do you how do you manage the feelings with that? Physically, she’s there, but mentally not.

Spencer Graves: [00:57:39] Well, It’s been one. I grew up in that world, like my father being in those nursing homes, like I’ve seen it with other people’s families and it’s traumatic no matter how you look at it. And it was hard. Like when my mom was diagnosed, I didn’t think that it would ever happen to my mom. My mom’s a greatest human being in the world. She dedicated her life to kids. She was a principal. She started a magnet program at the school that she was a principal in Virginia, generated a ton of grant money, like still have kids that grew up in her school sending me messages on Facebook like your mom was the greatest principal I’d ever had other teachers or like nobody. I didn’t work for anybody better than your mother. Like, it’s my mom had a really good life when made strong impacts with everybody. So I appreciate all those notes and that’s kind of what makes it easier. But being a board member with the Alzheimer’s Association really does help because my only job there is to help tell the story of my mother. So I get to live out my mom’s stories, and most of the stories I tell like, they’re terrible. They’re awful stories. They’re ones that you wouldn’t want to think. It’s not so much that my mom doesn’t know me. Most of the stories that I tell people are, you know, my mom almost had my dad arrested on the side of the road because she told somebody that she was kidnaped.

Spencer Graves: [00:59:01] You know, like there’s delusions that happen with Alzheimer’s and it’s hard. And as a caregiver, like, you don’t want to send them to a nursing home because you’re worried about the outcome, but you also can’t handle them when they’re at home because you’re not trained to do such a thing. And it’s only getting worse, you know, And they’ve made some progress and some treatments. But again, these are all treatments, so it slows the progression. There’s nothing as far as the cure, you know, when they have the Alzheimer’s walk, it’s there’s a lot of people that show up to it and it’s great that people show up to it. But we’ve never had a survivor. And that’s the hardest part, is you’re literally watching your family member just wither away. Heartbreaking, gut wrenching, terrible. The last treatment that they came out with went to the United States government. And our United States government said if we did this program, it would bankrupt Medicare and Medicaid. So we’re not going to do it. And I can understand it like on a on a financial sense. Yeah, that’s big pharma. That’s all the businesses that go into the medical decisions. And we can’t just get this drug out there to everybody. So I understand given the system that we’re in, but it’s BS. Like if we could, if we could treat Alzheimer’s patients and if we found a cure, oh man, I’d be, I’d be over the moon.

Sharon Cline: [01:00:23] What’s the best way that people can help like someone like me?

Spencer Graves: [01:00:27] I mean, financial donation is probably the greatest way because the research has to happen like we have in in Atlanta. There’s Emory. They do a lot of great work with Alzheimer’s. Washington University in. St Louis does amazing work with cognitive decline. There are numerous research hospitals and facilities that are doing some great work, but it’s a very young disease. I mean, it was properly diagnosed in 1906. I mean that’s that’s young in the grand scheme of people.

Sharon Cline: [01:01:01] Were just crazy before then, Right?

Spencer Graves: [01:01:02] Right. Yeah. I mean, most of the time it was like my mom was just losing her mind. You know, the fact that people still call it old timers, not Alzheimer’s. Alzheimer’s is the doctor’s name that is credited with coming up with what this disease showed. But, you know. I don’t wish it upon anybody. I think it’s I think it’s the worst disease that lives in the world. I wish that we had survivors from it. And, you know, some people have brought up to me and they still do. And God bless them for doing it. But they’ll say, hey, I just heard this thing about Alzheimer’s. Do you think your mom could benefit from it? My mom is so far gone, you know, like there’s nothing that could come out that would get my mom back. But I’m still going to talk about it. And I’m still going to fight for your parents. I’m going to fight for you. I’m going to fight for your kids. I’m going to fight for yourself. Even what we have. Yeah, And believe me, that’s a big scare like I’ve often thought. And it’s kept me from relationships to personal relationships where I’m like, why would I want to get involved with anybody to watch me decline like that? My mindset on that has changed, so. Yeah. I’m fighting for the people who don’t know they have it yet. I’m fighting for the people that we are not even introduced to it. And I just want people to know that exists. And during COVID, it was brutal. My dad’s facility, they shut down about three weeks before they had to and they didn’t have anybody lost to COVID.

Sharon Cline: [01:02:29] Oh, my gosh, you’re kidding me.

Spencer Graves: [01:02:30] No, like they locked it down and said nobody’s allowed to come in. The only people that are allowed to come in or the nurses on staff and the staff members, no family, nothing. And it was hard for my father, you know. And then my dad witnessed and realized that some people were passing away from just old age. I mean, that happens. And my dad was very unsettled with the idea that the government was trying to tell nursing homes, you can’t have anybody in your building. Well, my dad is a private pay, so he’s not a medicare Medicaid facility. So my father quarantined a room all by itself to where if your family member was in hospice or was was going to pass, you could come in. There was one way in, one way out. You could sit with your family member. And then after everything went down, they would go in, sanitize the room completely, and they just had it like a bereavement room.

Sharon Cline: [01:03:23] Well, can you imagine how painful that would be for anyone to not be able to to be outside a window knowing that, you know, the person inside this building is who you love?

Spencer Graves: [01:03:32] And that’s how my my dad felt, because he’s like, if this was my wife and I couldn’t see her, he’d be shattered.

Sharon Cline: [01:03:40] He has empathy to 100%.

Spencer Graves: [01:03:42] My dad is like, There’s no better teacher than your parents. Like, you learn so much from your parents. And and I learned a lot from my father. And I still continue to learn a lot from my father. And I learned from my mom. I mean, I saw her over Thanksgiving for about 15 minutes. And 15 minutes is about the max that she’s able to. But I bring my dogs in. She pets my dogs.

Sharon Cline: [01:04:01] And I love those. You talk about who your mom was before this diagnosis because she’s not just this diagnosis. And after so much has come before and I always appreciate people who there’s like a commercial where it shows a person who is an elderly person and then a shadow of who they were before they became an elderly person. I think it’s so important to identify with the human inside. There was the.

Spencer Graves: [01:04:23] Outside. There was a poem that I think was written, I think it’s called The Dash. And it really hits home because if you look at a tombstone, a tombstone tells you the date that somebody was born and the date that they died, what it skips over is the dash. The dash is the time that you lived your life. You know, my mom was an only child. She grew up in a farm family in Connecticut. She went to college. She worked overseas and traveled overseas. She came back. She was a teacher then. She was an assistant principal. She’s a sex ed teacher for a while. Wow. Cool. Like an incredible life. I’ve learned a lot from my mom. And then the stories that I remember from my mom being introspective and thinking about them. And then when she became a principal, we moved to Virginia, which a lot of people say, Oh, that’s not the South. Believe me, where we’re from in Virginia, it’s it’s backwoods, it’s the South, and it’s still the good old boy network. And this is early nineties, so my mom goes to try to become a principal. She’d never been a principal. She’d been a vice principal. She’d never been a principal. And her worry was, I’m going to walk in there and they’re going to see that I’m a woman.

Spencer Graves: [01:05:34] They’re going to see that I’m not a principal and they’re going to go, We have somebody else that can do this job. And my mom went in and basically argued her case, laid all that out on the table. I know I don’t have the documentation of being a principal. I know that I’m not the typical person that you put in this position. But here’s what I’ve been able to do X, Y, and Z. My mom got that job. She was the breadwinner for the majority of my family’s life. My dad, the money that he made with the nursing home he funded right back into the nursing home to try to build up that brand. And, you know, I learned a lot from my mom. And what I witnessed my mom go through is stuff that I still see women go through today. My mom was a hell of a negotiator, like she fought for everything that was ever put in front of her. And she just made people’s lives better that she worked with and that she taught in school. So for me, there’s no greater accolade that my mom can have than the dash, than the life that she lived. And seeing her now like it sucks because it feels like, God, we had such a good person and the world.

Sharon Cline: [01:06:47] So many.

Spencer Graves: [01:06:48] Or whatever people want to say, like outside influences, whatever it is, we don’t have that person anymore. But when my mom was in it, man, she was in it 100%. So that’s why I keep doing what I do with the Alzheimer’s Association is for anybody else. Like if you’re listening to this and. You’re thinking I have got to do a better job in my life. Like start today. You can make excuses or you can make action. Make action today.

Sharon Cline: [01:07:16] Well, I have some people on the show that are in the disability industry and it’s and I have a personal friend who’s an advocate and he talks about how disability or just any kind of compromising physical condition. We all are going to join that minority at some point. Yeah, all of.

Spencer Graves: [01:07:34] Us in the last thing the last thing that anybody. Who wants to lose their mind. You know, as long as you have a great mind. I mean, I think a lot about Stephen Hawkins. You look at Stephen Hawkins and this guy is in a wheelchair. Cannot move.

Sharon Cline: [01:07:51] Communicate without.

Spencer Graves: [01:07:52] Can’t communicate. He has to use the computer. Yeah, but he’s he was widely known as one of the most intelligent human beings of all time. So can’t walk, can’t move his arms, can’t talk, can’t do this, can’t block like all these cans. But he had his mind, and his mind was still the single greatest resource. So I think about that with people. I’m like, There’s nothing you can’t do as long as you have your mind, as long as you can think. There’s nothing you can’t do. There’s nothing that can stand in your way. The mind is the single greatest weapon that we have, and it’s the single greatest. Worst part. There’s no easy way to say it, but it’s also it’s it’s the dagger and sword, like it’s the greatest thing in the world and it’s the worst thing in the world because if it’s misused, it’s bad. But if it’s treated right, it’s great.

Sharon Cline: [01:08:46] Spencer, I have loved having you on the show. I feel like we could talk forever. This is great. Well, how can people get in touch with you if they wanted to? I mean.

Spencer Graves: [01:08:53] Facebook, Instagram, easiest ways. Spencer Graves at Mr. Spencer Graves on Instagram. I mean, I’m on every social media. I even have a TikTok. I don’t do the dances, but I definitely do the trends.

Sharon Cline: [01:09:05] I’ll follow you on TikTok.

Spencer Graves: [01:09:06] I just I like to I just like to goof around, have a good time, and, you know, make subtle jokes every once in a while. But the biggest ways are always Facebook and Instagram. And I respond back to people as fast as I can. So if anybody wants to connect, that’s the best way to do it.

Sharon Cline: [01:09:22] Well, thank you so much for joining us here on Fearless Formula. And this is Sharon Cline reminding you with knowledge and understanding, we can all have our own fearless formula. Have a great day. Thanks, Spencer.

Spencer Graves: [01:09:32] No problem. Make sure you get your pet spayed or neutered. Shout out to Bob. Bob. I love it.

Sharon Cline: [01:09:38] I always loved it.

Spencer Graves: [01:09:39] Man, that was such a smart thing that he did. Like he knew that he could go into that every time. So I loved it.

Sharon Cline: [01:09:44] Have a great day, everyone.